Improve Your Landscape
Painting Dramatically –
PAINT OUTDOORS!!!
I love landscape art, especially traditional
realism painting and I have been painting
landscapes for many years. Whilst I paint a lot in
my studio one of the things I love to do is paint
outside on location in the great outdoors.T
his is called painting ‘en plein air’, which is a French phrase
meaning to ‘paint outdoors’. Plein air painting is not only
thoroughly enjoyable, and great for the mind, body and spirit,
but it also helps immensely with improving your studio work. Plein air
painting teaches you to really look at the landscape, its forms, colours
and tonality. It teaches you to loosen up your painting technique,
improves your use of colour and understanding of composition. It also
teaches you to paint quickly as the light and weather conditions are
always changing.
One of the other rewarding things about plein air painting is that
within a few hours you can create some beautiful masterpieces that
would be suitable to hang on a living room wall. Plein air paintings are
vibrant and alive and often much more atmospheric and magical than
studio paintings.
In this article I am going to explain some of the equipment you will
need for painting outdoors and I’ll briefly go over some of the gear I
use. I have also included a step by step plein air painting demonstration
that will give you some tips on how to approach painting a landscape
from life. Many of the principles required for plein air painting can be
applied to your studio art work. So readers, pick up your brushes and
paints and have a go at painting outdoors, I guarantee you’ll have loads
of fun and your paintings will improve dramatically.
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Equipment
The first time I ever went plein air painting I brought my studio
easel. I quickly found that it was cumbersome to carry around with
me, although it was fine to use for the first couple of times. However,
I decided to purchase some equipment that would make my plein air
painting experience much easier. One of my main items of equipment
I use for plein air painting is my pochade box (pictured here). This is
a portable easel that contains storage compartments for paints and
finished paintings as well as a built in paint palette. My pochade box
mounts on a standard camera tripod, making it sturdy for when I am
painting and it is easy to carry around. There are many pochade boxes
available on the market.
When plein air painting, many plein air artists including myself prefer
to paint on loose canvas that is adhered to a panel with masking tape.
This allows the artist to paint whatever size canvas they desire and it
is also a cheaper way of doing it especially when you’re learning and
getting to grips with painting outside. The finished painting can then be
either mounted on a board or stretcher bars.
Note: if you intend to mount the painting
on stretcher bars it is advisable to adjust
your canvas size to standard sizes and leave
at least 3cm edge so it can be comfortably
mounted on stretcher bars.The equipment I use for plein air
painting includes the following:- Pochade box
- Camera tripod
- Paints
- Brushes
- Brush cleaner
- Liquin
- Paper towels
- Cloth
- Disposable nitrile gloves
Sam’s Pochade box with examples of how it sets
up on the camera tripod.By Samuel Earp